


My name's not Kelly

by LetMePukeInYourMouthEm



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Post-Apotheosis (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 12:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetMePukeInYourMouthEm/pseuds/LetMePukeInYourMouthEm
Summary: Ben has an identity crisis when Kelly tells him his name is really Paul
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 17
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

Ben was enjoying life in Colorado. He was satisfied. He and Kelly ran a pot farm together. It didn't really bother him that all of his memories before he moved to Colorado were hazy and nonspecific. He figured that was just a side effect of spending so much time around weed. Everything was fine.

Until the day she got home almost too drunk to stand up.

"Are you okay, Kelly?" Ben asked, helping her to the couch.

"My name's not Kelly," she said, flopping down next to him. 

"What do you mean?" 

"You know my name, silly."

"Yeah, it's Kelly." 

"No, it's not!" She laughed. "It's Emma." 

"I'm pretty sure you're Kelly," he smiled.

She smiled back at him and laid her head on his chest. "Nope! I'm not Kelly, Paul." 

_Nope! I'm not Kelly, Paul_

_I'm not Kelly, Paul _

_Paul_

_Paul_

_Paul_

Paul blinked and looked around the house he found himself in. Where was he? He felt someone leaning on him. He looked down and gasped.

"Emma?" He asked in disbelief. "Is it really you?"

"See? I told you my name was Emma," she laughed again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Paul sat in the living room, wondering what had happened since... what had happened again? The last thing he could remember was something about Mamma Mia. Bill. Where was Bill? Was he still with Alice? Was Alice still with Deb? Where was Charlotte? Was she still with Sam? Where was Ted? Where was Paul? He pulled out his phone and checked his location. Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Since when did he live in Colorado? And why couldn't he remember any of the last eight months?

"Hey, Ben," a hungover Emma mumbled, walking into the room. 

"What did you just call me?" 

"I called you Ben...?" Emma gave Paul a confused look. 

"Why did you call me Ben?"

"That's your name." 

"No, it isn't, Emma." 

Emma froze, then laughed nervously. "What are you talking about? My name's Kelly, you know that." 

"No, it isn't," Paul insisted. "And my name isn't Ben."

"Yes, it is. Have you taken your meds?"

Meds?

"Uh, no."

"That's why you're talking crazy," she nodded to reassure herself. She left the room and came back with two small pills. "Here you go, Ben."

"What are these for, again?" Paul asked, staring at the pills.

"You know what they're for," she said unsurely. 

Really? She couldn't even come up with an alibi?

"Uh, okay." He took the pills and suddenly remembered everything about his life in Colorado. "Hey, Kelly, what happened?"

Kelly sighed in relief. "There you are, Ben. I was worried about you for a second."


	3. Chapter 3

Ben tried to remember what had happened the night before, but it was all a blank spot. Did he get blackout drunk without knowing or something? He suddenly heard Kelly's voice from the bedroom and got up to listen. The door was closed, but he could still make out her panicked words.

"He called me Emma! Did they stop working? ... What do I do? I don't want to hurt him.... I don't think either of us are safe if he turns into Paul again." 

Paul woke up again at the sound of his name and tried to figure out what had just happened. The last thing he remembered was the medication she gave him. What was in those pills? Did Emma knock him out? He started paying attention again when he heard her voice through the door.

"Thank you, Colonel. I'll tell you if he does it again. Goodbye." She hung up the phone and sat down on the bed, mumbling something to herself. He walked away from the door, hoping Emma hadn't noticed him listening.

~•~•~•~

Paul faked taking the pills for the next few days. He never got used to answering to "Ben" or calling Emma "Kelly." She looked less scared of him when he did, though, and that was all he wanted. After three days of pretending to be Ben Bridges, something weird started happening. 

He was talking to Emma when his eyes flashed cobalt blue and his body jerked toward her.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked as he took her hands and started dancing with her. Really, he was dancing and she was being dragged along. "Paul!" Neither of them noticed that she had called him by his real name.

"I don't know!" She tried to pull away from him, but he held onto her tighter. "What is happening to me?" He saw her wince every time she stepped on her bad leg, although he didn't actually know that there was anything wrong with it.

"Stop! Stop before you start singing!" He could hear genuine fear in her voice.

"I can't!" Paul cried. 

"Paul!" 

"Help me!" 


	4. Chapter 4

Paul was terrified. Why wasn't he in control of his own body? And why was he suddenly a great dancer? Still dancing with Emma, he twirled and dipped her as she looked into his eyes, tears welling in the corners. They both dropped to the ground when he regained control of his body and stopped dancing. Emma yelped in pain when she landed on her leg. 

"What the fuck was that?" Paul asked, breathing heavily.

"That was why you're taking the pills!" Emma clapped a hand to her mouth when she realized what she had said. 

"I haven't!" Paul confessed, feeling like he was going to faint. "When I do, I think I'm this guy named Ben, and, and you're Kelly!" 

"Yes! That's what we want!" 

"'We'?"

"I've already told you too much," Emma said, trying to get up. Her weakened leg gave out from under her weight and she fell to the ground. "Ow!" 

"Emma, what happened to your leg?" Paul got up and tried to help her, but she pushed herself back.

"Get away from me!" His heart sank when he heard her say those words. 

"Emma. What is wrong with your leg?" He said slowly.

"I- I can't tell you," she said, looking away from his eyes. 

"Why?"

"If I told you about the crash, you'd know more about the apotheosis thing, and then your infection might return permanently."

"Crash? Apotheosis? Infection?" 

"No, no, no, why do I keep telling you shit?" Emma groaned and put her head to the floor. Paul tried again to help her up, but she wouldn't let him. "Don't!" 

"Emma, I just want to help you!" 

"The only way you can do that is by taking the pills, and really taking them," she said, pushing herself further away. "I'm not letting you near me until you do." 

Paul nodded quietly. He really didn't want to take them, but he wanted Emma to feel safe more than he cared about turning into Ben Bridges again. He walked to the medicine cabinet and was about to open it when he got a look at his reflection. Paul gasped when he saw his electric blue eyes. They weren't usually that color, right? He shook it off and picked up the bottle before a sudden wave of nausea hit him. He dropped it when he started vomiting blue shit. He grabbed the bottle again and quickly popped two pills into his mouth before he could vomit again. 


	5. Chapter 5

Ben woke up and walked back to where he heard Kelly's voice coming from, not noticing the blue vomit. He stopped when he heard Kelly talking on the phone again, realizing that was the last thing he remembered. 

"He was lying. He didn't take them... Yes... We were talking, and then he suddenly grabbed me and started dancing... He didn't sing, though, he was just as confused as I was." She looked up and saw him standing in the doorway. Her eyes widened and she quickly whispered something before hanging up and dropping the phone.

"Who was that, Kelly?" 

She smiled when he called her Kelly, then squinted at him. "Are you really Ben, or are you lying?"

"Who else would I be?" 

"Nobody." She paused. "What is January 28th?"

"My birthday." 

"When is my birthday?" 

"October 9th."

"What is my sister's name?" 

"You don't have a sister, you have two brothers. Their names are Grant and Andrew." 

She sighed in relief. "It really is you, then." Paul wouldn't have remembered she had a sister, much less would he have known about her "brothers." 

"Again, who else would I be? And what's wrong with your leg?" 

"Nothing."

"Please just tell me, Kelly," he said, helping her to the couch.

"It's not important."

"What happened the last few days?" Ben asked. "I can't remember any of it."

"Just the same old stuff. Did you hit your head or something?"

"I must have," he said unsurely. "I'm forgetting a lot lately."

~•~•~•~

Ben woke up screaming. Emma was jolted awake. "Paul! What's wrong?" She forgot that she was supposed to call him Ben.

Paul blinked and forgot what he had been scared of, which neither he nor Ben knew had been a nightmare about the Hive. "I... I don't know." 

"It's okay. Just go back to sleep," she mumbled. 

"Yeah. Thanks, Emma." 

Emma groaned, realizing why he had called her by her real name. "Before you do, take the pills."

"Um, okay." He got up and opened the bottle. Something in his head was telling him not to take them. He tried to remember what happened since he had taken them last. As usual, he couldn't. He decided to fake it again, forgetting what had happened the last time he had. He put the bottle away and went back to sleep. Everything would be fine. 

Right?


	6. Chapter 6

~•~Five days later~•~

"You're Ben, and she's Kelly," Paul whispered to himself. "Ben and Kelly." 

"What?" Emma looked up.

"Nothing," Paul said quickly. "Nothing at all."

Emma smiled. "Okay then, Ben." She started saying something about the pot farm, but she was drowned out by voices.

"Where is the singing coming from?" Paul asked, stumbling backward.

"What singing?" Emma asked cautiously.

"It's so loud," Paul whispered, covering his ears. "I don't..." 

Emma helped him get to the couch. "What? You don't what?"

Paul's body started moving impulsively again. He tried to tell Emma to get away from him, but what came out was a song. She gasped and grabbed her phone. Paul took it from her. "Colonel, help! He's singing!" Emma screamed into the phone before whatever was controlling Paul broke it. He gripped onto her arms and dragged her into his choreography, unable to stop himself from aggravating her injury. "Paul, please! Just stop!" His heart broke. She was in so much pain, all because of him, and he couldn't do anything about it. "I know you're in there, Paul," she said through tears. He let go of her, but kept singing as she tried to run away from him. She fell directly onto her bad leg and Paul's body grabbed her again. Before he could do anything, someone came up from behind him, pulled him away from her, and injected something into his arm. The last thing he heard was Emma, relieved that he wasn't singing anymore. Then the world went black.


End file.
